I was going to buy some more tea strainers but before I do... is it time for us to give up on loose tea? Pretty much everything we sell is in tea bags. Although a nice bit of proper tea is a lovely thing, is it worth keeping on the one or two loose teas that we have? They are messy and tea strainers are a hassle, an extra thing to wash etc.

I think the general disorganisation of the tea is one of the worst things about working in the kitchen. The way you have to search through all those boxes & jars to find the one you want is annoying enough. It's made worse when you've just agreed to get someone a cup of tea and charged them for that, only to find there is tea leaves so you have to change it to a pot. You then have to go and find a teaspoon to measure it out. Then sometimes the jar has no lid so you realise you are giving them tea that has been sitting losing its freshness & flavour for god knows how long.

It's also one of the more annoying things about washing up, having to deal with these leaves in the pot that can clog up the drains.

Things are slightly easier since we've been using less loose tea. I'm all for making things as easy as possible for vollies. I think that should be a priority. We shouldn't pretend to be a classy tea place when we clearly are not capable of being that, any more than we are capable of serving proper good coffee. The fact that we offer a wide range of different teas is good enough for me and beats most other places in the tea stakes.

I'd like to hear people's suggestions for how we can make tea less of a nuisance. In the meantime, I'll try to get some nice strainers if we're not ready to lose the looseness yet.

We shouldn't pretend to be a classy tea place when we clearly are not capable of being that, any more than we are capable of serving proper good coffee.

Sorry Niel, I strongly disagree.this is a negative attitude that underestimates the capabilities of our lovely volunteers.

We are capable of serving a good cup of tea. It's not hard.

We should strive to provide the best possible service to our coustomers with regards to tea and coffee. We run a cafe, after all.

Not pretendeng to be a classy tea place, but providing a good range of good teas. I think you will find that the profit margin on loose leaf is higher than on bags, and what Scoutt said.

I hereby volunteer to sort out a "tea menu", with brewing instructions incuded.And to rejar and organise the tea shelf. If we agree, I will do so by the 10th of Nov. as far as, teas strainers goes, yes, those nice Tea Pots with infusers incuded (like these) would be nice, but might be seen as a an unesseccary expense.otherwise a bunch more straners and we could realy do with a big box of Tea Spoons anyway.we should keep a pot of spoons by the tea shelf.

Whist I am around for the next 6 weeks, I will offer a free weekly Coffee Training Session if people think its a good idea.

I think that one of the most valuable things that Forest does is offer people an opertunity to learn how to work in a cafe. These are basic cafe skills.

we can go over the basics of the coffee machine, the types of coffeedrink we offer, the best practice of preparation and tricks & techniques along with a look at the teas on offer and an understanding of what they are and how to prepare them.

Spaces are limited to 4 people each week. There will be a sign up sheet in the kitchen.